Pastures new
Mike Moore, Executive Vice President, Essex Aviation, talks to Anthony Harrington about his decision to leave Meridian, where he headed up aircraft management, fuel sales and retail charter, in order to join Lee Rohde’s aircraft broking and consultancy company, Essex Aviation
AH: Mike, in many ways you’ve been the ‘face’ of Meridian for more than a decade. Many people in the industry will be surprised at the fact that you are no longer there. What was the decision process that led to you leaving to join Essex Aviation? And why did you choose aircraft acquisitions and consulting, in general, and Essex in particular, as the next step in your career?
MM: There is no doubt that Meridian has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years, and I’ve been proud to play a role in that. As part of that growth, Meridian opened up its 30,000 square foot hangar at Hayward Executive Airport, giving the company a West Coast presence to go with its Teterboro FBO.
Things have moved on quite a long way since I joined Meridian back in 2008, as the Director of Aviation sales, and I have to say it has been a tremendous eleven years. I’ve been heading up aircraft management and sales for a long while now at Meridian. As anyone who has done it will know, this is a really demanding position. At the same time, I’ve known Lee Rohde for probably more years than I’ve been at Meridian and we’ve talked together many times about the market and about transactions.
Sometimes I’d have a client who wanted to buy an aircraft and I’d put Lee in the frame. Or he’d be buying an aircraft for someone and he’d put me and Meridian in there as an option with one or two other aircraft management operations. So, we’ve done a lot of business together over the years.
I’ve always rated Lee as one of the best in the business. He does a tremendous amount of research for clients, and if he’s making recommendations about services, such as aircraft management, he really goes out of his way to understand what the options are that he’s proposing. Very few brokers do that side of things well.
AH: So, have you always had an interest in the transaction side of business aviation, the buying and selling of aircraft?
MM: Absolutely. The funny thing is that I did this all the time for free for Meridian clients. Someone who was a charter customer of ours, for example, would call me up and say, “Hey Mike, I find I’m doing around 80 to 100 hours a year charter, should I be buying my own aircraft yet? Should I maybe think about a fractional share?”
When I got those kinds of calls, I’d ask them what kind of budget they thought they could afford a year, what kinds of trips they were making, who they were flying with and so on. Then I’d work out potential operating costs, and look at some pre-owned versus new aircraft costs., I just wanted to give people good advice and help them make an informed decision.
I’d put quite a bit of work into it, then I’d discuss it with the client and pass it on to Lee, or to one of the other major brokers. I’ve dealt with them all over the years. But all of this would be simply relationship building on my part. It would be a free service for the client. I enjoyed it and it was a real value add for whoever I was doing it for, but it did not generate direct revenue for me or for the company, unless we ended up managing their aircraft
So, the idea of doing this full time was very appealing. I’d done aircraft sales and acquisitions early on in my career in business aviation, and I had enjoyed it hugely. I originally joined Meridian to head up Aircraft Sales & Acquisition, and Aircraft Management. However, then we had the global financial crash of 2008 and the bottom dropped out of sales transactions. That was my first week at Meridian. The company decided to concentrate on Aircraft Management, so that’s where I put all my efforts.
The other side of this is that aircraft management is very much a relationship game, but it is one where, as the go-to guy for the client, you can find yourself fire-fighting morning, noon and night. A very common conversation is where the owner calls up aggrieved at the end of the year, because he expected to get 400 hours of charter to offset his costs, and the actual figure is way south of that.
When you explain to him that the figure of 400 hours was predicated on the jet being available, which you made clear when he signed the management contract, whereas he was himself using the jet for 400 hours, that conversation tends not to go well.
Then there are the occasions where you get his or her permission to use the jet for a charter flight, despite the fact that they need it in two days for a key meeting. Then the jet goes AOG with an orange light in the cockpit, and you’re phoning the owner up late at night to explain that the jet is not going to be available, after all. It doesn’t matter how you approach it, that is not going to be a happy conversation.
Then there are the crew issues in a world where pilots are in short supply. I’d phone an owner up and advise them that pilot salaries had moved well beyond what the owner was currently paying. “You need to increase their salaries, or you’ll lose your pilots,” I’d say. About a year later they’d phone in a panic. Their chief pilot’s just resigned. You can’t say, “I told you so,” but hey, I told you so.